


"Picking Up the Pieces"

by MrsKohakuSato



Category: Voltron: Lion Force (1984)
Genre: Black Paladin Lotor (Voltron), F/M, Grief/Mourning, Heartache, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, One-Sided Attraction, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23137744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsKohakuSato/pseuds/MrsKohakuSato
Summary: [Keith leaves and Lotor’s left to pick up the pieces.]
Relationships: Allura/Lotor (Voltron)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	"Picking Up the Pieces"

**Author's Note:**

> I've been dabbling with this headcanon for a while now, Dotu! Lotor being the pilot of the Black Lion. I mean it's a freaking hilarious scenario, but this fic turned out more angsty perhaps more than I intended. But, the summary of my Dotu! Black Lion Pilot! Lotor Au: is basically this, Lotor ends up trying to start a coup, however, it ends up backfiring when Haggar learns of his plans and spills the beans to Zarkon who is infuriated and tries to have him killed. Lotor flees and ends up saving Voltron from his father's wrath only this ends up with him in Arus custody and imprisoned. Keith and Garrison want to go to extreme measures to punish Lotor for his crimes(torture to extract information from him). Allura refuses, whether she liked Lotor or not, didn't give them the right to act like monsters themselves. This leads to a lot of arguing between Keith and Allura. Keith feels like Allura isn't willing to do enough to stop the war, while Allura thinks Keith and the Garrison are being way too extreme in their ways to stop the Empire. Long story, short Keith ends up leaving the team and Allura ends up pardoning Lotor for his crimes. 
> 
> I also intermingled another headcanon of mine with Lotor's mother. That Lotor never really got to have a normal childhood, that at a young age he was his mother's primary caretaker; because of Zarkon's constant abuse towards her she ends up slowly degrading mentally, emotionally and psychologically leaving Lotor to be the parent to his own mother.
> 
> The One-sided Attraction is referring to Allura/Keith not Allura/Lotor

Lotor knew heartbreak when he saw it. When Kogane left he broke her, tore her heart to pieces and left him to clean up the damn mess he made. 

It's funny, he thinks how it's always him that has to fix what others break. It was him who tended to Lora's injuries when his father struck her bloody. It was him who brought her meals when she no longer had the energy to leave bed. It was him who combed her hair, and tended to her clothes when she no longer had the strength.

His father broke Lora and he was left to put together the shattered pieces of her soul.

The situation was reminiscent of his childhood. And though Kogane would never do to Allura what his father did to his mother he still hurt her all the same by abandoning her and breaking her heart.

He heard her cry at night, he didn't sleep much these days and wandered the castle, so he became rather intimate with her grief. Listened to her sobs until she exhausted herself. Seeing her enter the dining room with red-rimmed eyes and slacked shoulders and anguish written in crystal blue eyes; It was his youth smacking him right in the face once again. Unwelcomed, Unprecedented, unremorseful.

Allura tilts her head and smiles in the way Lora did to ward off questions. They knew. He knew. When she kissed his cheek and told him everything was going to be alright despite half of her face being marred black and blue by Zarkon's fist. Lotor excused himself from the table and ended up vomiting what little he ate that morning. Cursing and heaving, he felt his face moistened. Strange, he thinks he can't even remember the last time he cried. It must've been eons, ages, he lost count over the years.

It’s apparent to him that Allura reminds him of Lora in the worst possible ways.

It's why he almost breaks Coran's neck the moment he overheard him and Allura's nursemaid discuss marrying her off despite her protests. Without Kogane, Voltron cannot be formed and thus they're ripe for assault. Someone is needed to fill in the gap the captain left. In their genius, they decided up a complete stranger; a King from a close planet.

Lotor nearly sees red. How can they be so  **damn** careless! Have they any idea what he might  **do** to her? She'll be used, she'll be beaten and degraded. Trapped within a cage that she'll never be able to escape. 

_ Will they clean her rags and bandages? Will they help bathe her when she’s far too wounded to move? Who will feed her when she can no longer feed herself any longer? Who will read her books and stories at her bedside to assuage her worries at night? OR sleep by her side when she’s ailed with nightmares and fevers? _

Coran calls him a hypocrite.

He doesn't answer that "then give me the key." He says vehemently and Coran balks, Nanny says he has no right to make demands "I'll be the Black Lion's pilot if it means Allura isn't sold off to be some bastard's broodmare."

"You can't be serious?"

"I'm plenty serious. I've never been anything less than serious."

"You'll go to Doom with Voltron's secrets"

"Daddy dearest wants me dead." He counters with an open palm, silently demanding the key.

"You'll bargain" he snorts sardonically.

“You do not know my father then? Secrets or no, he'll slay me regardless. He has no honor, he is loyal to no one but himself. In his eyes, I'm no more than a tool. Give me the key. I'm best the warrior Arus has to offer, better than Kogane. I know the inner workings of my empire which can be useful for your cause"

He can see the wheels in the adviser's head turning "and what do you get out of it?"

"My throne. My birthright. With it, I'll help end this senseless war" 

"Coran!" Nanny cries "you can't be considering this monster's proposal!?"

"Allura has the key, not I"

"Coran!" 

He storms away to find Allura in her garden. She's watering and tending to the various rows of herbs. She nearly jumped at the call of her name, she swung around with eyes still red-rimmed. Instead of pink, she's adorning a blue gown and Lotor finds his world falling off its axis again. Catching himself he decides it's better to be straightforward. Allura hates dawdling, so does he.

"I want to be your new pilot" 

"I don't understand-"

"Allow me to be the Black Lion's new pilot" 

Her lips part, her shock is pliable, she's motionless for a few seconds "w-why?"

"Because I want to fight for Arus" 

she frowns at him"You’re not being very funny".

"It is not a joke. I mean it, let me be your pilot, let me fight for you." Her eyes lower, she drops her watering pot and finds a seat on a stone bench. He follows her, kneeling before her in all sincerity, to make his point clear.

"I-I don't get you, Lotor" her hands curl in her lap "when I think I understand you, you turn around and do this. Why should I trust anything you say-"

"You said before that I was a senseless brute. That I cared for no one but myself." She eyes him cautiously "let me prove to you the depth of my feelings for you"

"Is that what this all about?" The image of her beaten bloodied chills his body, he's reminded of his mother's dying breaths, reminded of having to watch her waste away into nothing but a shell of someone once human. Even if he cannot have her as he wants, the thought of her sad and miserable tears at him. If she’s smiling and happy-then he can accept that at least, as long as she’s safe he can be satisfied. 

"No" he admits. Maybe the reason is more selfish than he realizes, but he does not know if he could withstand seeing what happened to Lora, happen to Allura if he can help it. He's not a helpless child any longer.

"Perhaps, not"

"Then what is it really?"

"Does it matter" she fidgets "you're down one pilot and I'm a fugitive with nowhere to go."

"How can I trust you?"

"Trust can be built" 

"Not on a shattered foundation." She argued.

"You can always start from the beginning again"

"How do we do that?" 

He ran a hand through his hair "I wish I knew" that earned him a genuine smile, the first he's seen in months of Kogane's departure. The first he's seen directed at him. It warms him in a way alcohol could never hope to achieve. 

"Your odd, Lotor." She says.

"Am I?" 

"The strangest man I've ever met. So far at least" she murmurs.

"Will you let me pilot?" She goes quiet again, rolling the question around in her head.

"The others won't like it"

"I do not care much for their opinions." 

"They'll hate me"

"That's their issue"

"Why did he leave…." his first answer would be that he was a coward and a fool. But, that would be cruel to say to her right now "I thought-I thought-" her voice cracks.

"I thought he'd always be here fighting by my side. I thought everything was fine, he always told me everything was fine and that I should rely on him…." She sniffs "and then goes on and leaves me. How could he do that?" Lotor has no answers. He has no idea why Kogane left and honestly he could care less. She leans over letting her head fall in the crook of his shoulders, sobbing into the leather of his armor.  _ Lora used to do that, when he was small she'd gather him up in her arms and wail so quietly, if he wasn’t so close and his senses weren’t as acute he wouldn’t have heard a thing, clutching him to her chest in an iron grip, as she rocked them back and forth.  _ In return he cradled her head while she cried, despite kneeling he still towered above her, though the position was hell on his joints, but he didn't dare move. If he did he was terrified she might crumble in his grasp.

When she comes to, she wipes her eyes and face "Do you really mean it, you'll fight for Arus?"

He grabs her hands and squeezes "Yes, I will"

With her tears drying over her red cheeks she gives him one last cautionary glance "the boys really aren't going to like this" 

Once again the cycle repeats only this time, he's determined to change the outcome.


End file.
